The Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme, which was created by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, last week released a list of more than 3,000 companies that had dealings with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein during the life of the program, which was allegedly rife with corruption. The Committee found that 248 companies received and paid for Iraqi oil under contracts totaling $64 billion, while another 3,545 firms exported goods to south and central Iraq while the program was in effect as part of the sanctions imposed on the Hussein regime. Among the oil companies involved were units of ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco. A page with links to the Committee's public statement and the company lists can be found at http://www.iic-offp.org/story21oct04.htm.

The Department of Energy's Office of Scientific and Technical Information has expanded its database of federally-funded research & development projects to include six different agency sources. The website (at http://www.osti.gov/fedrnd/) allows one to simultaneously search project databases from the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Agriculture and the Small Business Administration--as well as the Energy Department. Among the uses of the website is to track the flow of federal research dollars to specific companies.

The Center for Public Integrity has created a searchable database of state legislator financial disclosure forms. Use the tabs on the left of this page http://www.publicintegrity.org/oi/report.aspx?aid=377&sid=300 to search by legislator, zip code or financial interest (corporate name). Scanned images of the forms are available from 2000-2003 for most legislators.

A group of city and state government treasurers recently sent an open letter to SEC Chairman William Donaldson calling for mandatory disclosure of contributions by public companies to political entities such as 527s. The group, led by California State Treasurer Phil Angelides, declared that "shareholders have a right to know how the companies they own are using their money in the political arena." The letter can be found at http://www.treasurer.ca.gov/news/releases/2004/082504_sec.pdf

The disclosure proposal has also been promoted by the Center for Political Accountability (http://www.politicalaccountability.net/), a non- partisan group created last year "to bring transparency and accountability to corporate political giving."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Transparency International's focus on corruption in public procurement

Transparency International, a transnational non-governmental organization that campaigns against corruption, recently issued a report estimating that corruption in public procurement costs $400 billion a year worldwide.

The estimate was made in connection with the release of the group's Corruption Perception Index, which ranks countries according to the degree of dishonesty cited in a variety of surveys. Transparency International Chairman Peter Eigen noted that numerous oil-rich countries (including postwar Iraq) did poorly in the rankings. "In these countries," Eigen said, "public contracting in the oil sector is plagued by revenues vanishing into the pockets of western oil executives, middlemen and local officials.” The United States, by the way, ranked behind about 15 other countries, mainly in Europe and Scandinavia but also including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong. For more information, seehttp://www.transparency.org/pressreleases_archive/2004/2004.10.20.cpi.en.html

Last month the Department of Justice opened its $280 billion civil racketeering suit against the cigarette industry. If you want a blow-by-blow account of the case and can't be in the courtroom, your alternative is a blog called Tobacco on Trial, which can be found at www.tobacco-on-trial.com. It has breaking news, court documents and profiles of lawyers and witnesses. The blog is an offshoot of Gene Borio's Tobacco.org website.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. Northern Light business research engine for individuals

Last year, in Dirt Diggers Digest No. 46, it was reported that the information service Northern Light was returning with a website that combined a business-oriented search engine and access to so-called premium content. Initially, the new service was being marketed only to large organizations at an annual fee of some $20,000, but now it is available to those with more modest means at a cost of $50 a month (free trials are available). The service focuses on a controlled universe of about 16,000 business websites and provides access to full-text content from 1,400 trade journals and 70 newswires. For more details, see http://www.northernlight.com/.